More Pretty Please

Cleaning your brushes is one of the biggest favors you can do for yourself in the makeup world. If you’re a mama (like me), this becomes a “to do” on a seemingly endless list of “to dos”! But it is actually really important for several reasons. The first is that your brushes will last twice as long, no matter how much you paid for them originally, it’s not fun when you need to replace one unexpectedly. Secondly, it just good for your skin! Think about this way, you wash your face at night (I hope) and start with a clean, fresh face in the morning before you put on your make up. You don’t put your make up on top of last night’s makeup! That would be gross. But not washing your brushes… that’s kinda the same thing. Third, your makeup will apply so much better! Think of the last time you bought a new brush and how amazing it made your makeup look, remember that feeling? That’s because it was clean and new!

There are two ways that I wash my brushes and it depends on the brush type and how much time I have. My favorite method is using Cinema Secrets. It smells super weird in the bottle, but once it dries your brushes smell like vanilla! It also sanitizes them and kills bacteria. So that’s important! It’s roughly $35 on Amazon but I promise you, unless you have a collection like mine or you’re a professional makeup artist this will last you a long time. I had my bottle for six months before I needed to replace it, that was cleaning my brushes roughly every other week.

I also will “shampoo” my brushes, which I don’t do as frequently but I do on occasion, especially on lighter colored bristles. I have learned that Cinema Secrets, as awesome as it is, can stain lighter colored bristles blue.

Using Cinema Secrets:

You will need:

Paper towels (like A LOT)

Small bowl or tin or open container (not one that you drink out of) *Sephora sells  a tin for exactly this purpose but in my picture I am using a bowl I got from Pampered Chef because it’s the right size and it was handy

Good flat workspace

1. Pour a bit of the Cinema Secrets into your container

2. Dip your brush into it

• Try to drain excess liquid on the edge of bowl so the brush isn’t soaking wet

3. Wipe the brush on your dry paper towel

• Remember to work with the shape of the brush (like when you’re sanding wood), go with the bristles
• When it’s time to either re-wipe your brush or wipe a new brush, it has to be on a dry area of the paper towel, if the whole thing is soaked, throw it away and get a fresh one

4. Repeat as necessary, until brush wipes clean

5. Lay flat on a clean paper towel to dry

Shampooing your Brushes:

You will need:

Sigma Spa Glove (or similar) *You can get Sigma products at Nordstrom now! I die.

Running water

Small bowl or container

Brush Shampoo *Baby shampoo works great and also smells amazing, but MAC does make a brush shampoo if you’re feeling the need to have something that’s officially for makeup brushes

Paper towels

Flat Space *To place your brushes to dry

1. Mix some warm water and shampoo in the small bowl

2. Swish bristles in mixture

3. Using either the face or eye side of the Spa Glove, massage the bristles until they are nice and foamy *just like your hair!

4. Use the rinse area of the Spa Glove and the running water to rinse out all the suds

5. Reshape brush

• I do this with my hand but the Sigma Glove does have a reshaper between the thumb and hand part

6. Lay flat to dry

• I have seen recommendations to place your brushes bristle side down so that the water doesn’t drain into the ferule and potentially corrode the glue keeping the bristles there but I’m always worried about my bristle shape so I don’t typically do that

**Got a beauty question? Email me: moreprettyplease@gmail.com and I might answer it here!

*P.S. Thanks to my beautiful, amazing sissy for taking pictures of my brush washing processes!